Health insurance – protecting health and wealth?

What’s interesting is that the biggest growth has come from 'self-pay', where patients pay upfront for their operations.

Patients can expect to pay between £8,000 and £15,000¹ for a procedure, depending on where they are in the country and the type of hip or knee replacement they need.

For a patient experiencing continual pain, having a choice of a long wait or a self-pay option, paying for a procedure may feel like the only alternative.

However, it’s not an option within everyone’s reach.

Affordable healthcare options

Alongside the NHS, another option is to take out private health insurance cover.

Health insurance can be complex. My view is that anybody considering health insurance should talk to an adviser, as they will be able to find cover to meet budget and needs and explain exactly what is covered and what's not.

The key is to get people thinking about health insurance earlier in their lives. And this needs to be part of the client/adviser financial planning conversation. For example, could your client afford to fund a procedure costing £8,000 - £15,000? Would this money have to come out of pension pots or hard-earned investments? And, what would the cost be of freeing up this money?

It's worth remembering that there are affordable health insurance products in the market for clients.

With our own product, Health+, you can tailor the cover to meet your client’s budget. Interestingly, the average annual premium for Health+ members is just under £1,700 per year. And while this may be out of reach for some, for many, this is a preferable option than being faced with either a long wait or having to cash in an investment/pension to pay for an operation.

As Virgil said, ‘The greatest wealth is health’, and surely this is worth protecting?²

^{[1] https://www.ft.com/content/e9ac6302-f000-4c7a-a7ad-1094c130625a)
[2] https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/greatest-wealth-health}